Rosa Cerruto’s Cartoons and Comment on lockdown & Corona crisis

Rosa Cerruto, Italian member of United Sketches, illustrator living and working in The Netherlands.

“My drawings are a result of moods, reflections, interpretations of what I have seen and experienced in these days. I have chosen the most significant ones, others are dedicated to Italy.

The cartoons are a way to deal with this situation, alleviating this long period of isolation that I took as an occasion and not as a limit. Cartoonists often live isolated from the world but are always attentive and sensitive to what happens in the world as privileged observers. You might know this better than I do.

In every drawing there is a house, a kind of concrete cage, a space with defined borders but also a protective space which it its kind has more or less became a symbol for this period. They represent those who despair because they want to get out of this cage and those who hide. Some seek comfort on their own couch in dealing with this storm of the coronavirus that hits the world, while others like King Kong on top of the ‘Empire State Building, are abandoned because the New Yorkers are hiding from the virus.

I think many of us are not used to manage our loneliness which we are now constrained to and consider this as a lack of freedom rather than an opportunity to get to know each other better.
This lockdown highlights what we are, our fears and insecurities and the use of social media helps to bridge these distances and makes us feel less lonely, and in some way distracts and strengthens us.
I have posted the designs almost daily on Facebook and Instagram and from the beginning I started receiving comments and messages where people told me to feel represented in some way or another by the drawings, which made them smile but also made them feel in company, which cheered and brought comfort to their days … in short, a kind of social service with an ironic wink.

This is the power of images that communicate a feeling and a state of mind. I am happy to share them in this historic moment of social distancing which has brought me closer to the people that I know and have introduced me to new ones.”